Mark 14:1-31

Introduction

The Book of Mark is the James Bond style book of the bible

It has the pace of my favorite Bond movie skyfall

From the opening action is nonstop

Characters develop and the final clash is being set up from the beginning

All the drama is laid out and the lines are drawn

Then the action gets faster as the final fight comes

That is Mark

What Jesus has done and said has set him on an irreversable course to the Cross

This is what is has all been building too

This is the final week of Jesus life and the war is all that is left

From here on out its nonstop fast paced

This starts what is called the Passion

As usual the story is told starkly and with no attempt to soften the blow or ease the pain of those who read

He is shouting who the real Jesus is

What the real Jesus came to do

And the only real way to respond to him

He wrote it for us today as much as they needed it 2000 years ago as we live in country of build a bear jesus and build a bear christianity

We are going to see three things today as we cover alot of ground - There’s Only 2 Responses, Christ In Control, and Sin is Closer Then You Think

Only 2 Responses

Mark 14:1–11 CSB

It was two days before the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a cunning way to arrest Jesus and kill him. “Not during the festival,” they said, “so that there won’t be a riot among the people.” While he was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured it on his head. But some were expressing indignation to one another: “Why has this perfume been wasted? For this perfume might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they began to scold her. Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a noble thing for me. You always have the poor with you, and you can do what is good for them whenever you want, but you do not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body in advance for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. And when they heard this, they were glad and promised to give him money. So he started looking for a good opportunity to betray him.

Christ In Control

Mark 14:12–21 CSB

On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrifice the Passover lamb, his disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare the Passover so that you may eat it?” So he sent two of his disciples and told them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Wherever he enters, tell the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” ’ He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.” So the disciples went out, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. When evening came, he arrived with the Twelve. While they were reclining and eating, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.” They began to be distressed and to say to him one by one, “Surely not I?” He said to them, “It is one of the Twelve—the one who is dipping bread in the bowl with me. For the Son of Man will go just as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for him if he had not been born.”

The Passover meal had to be prepared in a certain way and had a distinct form. It included four points at which the presider, holding a glass of wine, got up and explained the feast’s meaning. The four cups of wine represented the four promises made by God in Exodus 6:6–7.

These promises were for rescue from Egypt, for freedom from slavery, for redemption by God’s divine power, and for a renewed relationship with God. The third cup came at a point when the meal was almost completely eaten. The presider would use words from Deuteronomy 26 to bless the elements—the bread, the herbs, the lamb—by explaining how they were symbolic reminders of various aspects of the early Israelites’ captivity and deliverance. For example, he would show them the bread and say, “This is the bread of our affliction, which our fathers ate in the wilderness.”

Jesus was the presider at this Passover meal with the disciples, and Mark recounts what happened when Jesus raised the third cup:

And it is a sharp contrast of a useful king verses the King we need

Timothy Keller, Jesus the King: Understanding the Life and Death of the Son of God (New York: Riverhead Books, 2013), 180.

Even down to the instructions gives the sharp historical contrast between what we have always needed rescue from

THe failing king of Israel who they wanted 1 Samuel 10:1-8

Jesus didn’t come to make Israel great again

He didn’t come to be an add on to what you want without him anyway

The true king of God’s people came to kill our greater enemy and they didn’t want a king like that

A useful Jesus if that is all you want will leave you in the end with no hope for eternity

The king we need has come

The exodus we need has come

The promises we need fullfilled need life breathed into them

He has come in control of the details to show this is who he is

And we have to choose like Israel did 2000 years ago

If you are blessed to hear week after week the real jesus

If you are given oppotunities millions never get to hear for a lifetime about the gospel and then reject the real jesus and what he clearly asks of you it would be better in the end to have never been born to hear the truth then to hear it be close to it to hear it and know it and reject it

Mark is not interested in a ted talk jesus with language like your destiny and tolerance and love or your maximizing your potential

Its not like us making a jesus that we want him to be changes who he really is

What it does is set the stage for the end of our lives when who he really is will be shown to be true

Sin Is Closer Then You Think

Mark 14:22–31 CSB

As they were eating, he took bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will fall away, because it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.” Peter told him, “Even if everyone falls away, I will not.” “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to him, “today, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” But he kept insisting, “If I have to die with you, I will never deny you.” And they all said the same thing.

When you hear sinner who do you think of?

Careful don’t blurt it out they may be sitting next to you

Here is what Jesus is saying…when you think of a sinner in need of the gospel you should say me as the first name that comes to mind

Mark 14:22 CSB

As they were eating, he took bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.”

Jesus says, “Take it.” He lets us know that we have to take what he is doing for us. We have to receive it actively. It is common to distribute the Lord’s Supper and say, “Feed on him in your hearts by faith.” You don’t get the benefit of food unless you take it in and digest it. You can have a meal piled high in front of you, all the food cooked to perfection, and you could still starve to death. To be nourished by a meal, you have to eat it. The excellent preparation of the food doesn’t help you if you’re not willing to pick it up and take it into yourself. Taking it is the same as saying, “This is the real food I need—Christ’s unconditional commitment to me.”

Timothy Keller, Jesus the King: Understanding the Life and Death of the Son of God (New York: Riverhead Books, 2013), 186.

And why do we have to accept what he has done and take it ?

Because sin isn’t out there somehwere

It is in all of us, and it is the sin of those who will receive him that he covers

it is easy to think of the things that were so bad jesus had to die are out there somewhere

Not me or the sin i do

Not the stuff i think aren’t hurting anyone i can compromise here